More football

OK if you don't want more football analysis then as soon as Blogger lets me post photos I'll have another one up.

FOX here is getting great mileage out of the Simpsons episode where Springfield hosts a football game. Why? I never realised this but it was Mexico v Portugal. The soundbyte of Homer saying "I'll kill myself if Portugal doesn't win" is the phrase I've most heard this week. We'll wait for Wednesday to see how Homer goes.

The other thing I've heard this week is not Australia played well, but why didn't we score? In a way it's great, it's respect. Not the patronising "Oh you lost but you played well", it's independent viewers saying "If you have as much of the ball as your opponents, if you have half a dozen good chances on goal, you have as much right to win it as them. Who cares which team is Brazil." I loved the way the Aussie midfielders played the ball around, kept possesion, one-touch football, look for the opening. None of this long ball shit, none of this panic when you have the best players in the world running at you.

My love of Guus remains. SBS said he was conservative in only playing one striker and stacking the midfield but I nearly fell off the couch when he took Moore off and put Aloisi on. Taking off your central defender against Brazil? Who here would do that?! But it sends a message to the players and to the country - we're not here to "lose by a little", we're good enough to win and we're going to chase that win.

This is what I mean when I say how much this means to Australia. We're a country of arrogant over-achievers in sport football is something we're ranked no. 44 in the world in and that doesn't sit well, that belief we have in ever other sport isn't there. Yet. Respect. It's almost there. The next stage is to progress, and somehow I'm comforted Guus is at the helm. Australia historically have failed in these tactical games but this World Cup is different so far, so fingers crossed. Don't worry boys the Alentejo is with you!

One thing I'm not so proud of was some of the fans in Munich. Don't ask me why but some idiot holding up the holiest of holies (Munich beer) and say "Gee the beer's not bad here" makes my teeth clench. There are some Aussie tourists who don't quite integrate or learn or just shut up when they should. Like the one on the travel channel last night who somehow got into a story on Vanuatu (methinks the local guy hosting picked her up and couldn't get rid of her in the morning) with no journalistic talent except saying "awesome" 8 times in a 5 minute story.